That was part of the message Wednesday night from Tom Daschle, a former U.S. senator and Senate majority leader from South Dakota, speaking about the Affordable Healthcare Act and the future of wellness in America.

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Staff photo by Michael G. Seamans Former U.S. senator and former majority leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota delivers the annual George Mitchell International Lecture at Colby College in Waterville on Wednesday.

Staff photo by Michael G. SeamansU.S. Sen. George Mitchell introduces former U.S. senator and former majority leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota to deliver the annual George Mitchell International Lecture at Colby College on Wednesday.

“We are in the most transformative time as regards to health care in American history,” Daschle told an audience at Colby College’s Diamond building. “We are transitioning from an illness system to a wellness system.”

Daschle said with changes under the Affordable Care Act, pre-existing condtions could not be used to prevent health care services; he said women now have added options and children under 26 are covered under their parents’ insurance plans.

Daschle’s remarks Wednesday came during the annual Sen. George J. Mitchell Distinguished International Lecture. Each year the lecture series features a prominent foreign policy leader to foster interaction among students, faculty, and members of the greater Waterville community while honoring former U.S. senator, statesman, international negotiator, and Waterville native George Mitchell.

Daschle served in the U.S. Senate from 1987 to 2005. He is one of the longest-serving Senate Democratic leaders in history and the only one to serve twice as both majority and minority leader. During his tenure, Daschle navigated the Senate through some of its most historic economic and national security challenges. In 2003 he chronicled some of these experiences in his book, “Like No Other Time: The 107th Congress” and “Two Years That Changed America Forever.”

On Wednesday, during the lecture hosted by Colby’s Goldfarb Center, Daschle said the United States never really had a health system until the Affordable Care Act. Instead, America had a marketplace, where there was private-sector innovation but no coordination. He said health care has become a deeply polarizing issue, but he said citizens from both ends of the political system can agree that there is a cost problem and that people are not getting what they are paying for.

Daschle said the nation needs a health care system that keeps people well rather than one that makes them well after they become sick.

Daschle said the questions to be asnswered include what role the federal government will have in the future of health care, but that he has never been more optimistic that American can come together.”

“We can do this,” he said. “The Affordable Health Care Act has been good for the states.”

Comparing the fight for health care to a football game, Daschle said America is on the 30-yard line in the game of our lives. There will be fumbles, there will be lost yards, but always there will be forward progress.

Quoting the late South African President Nelson Mandela, he said many things are impossible until they are done.

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